And They Smiled
by lannerz
Summary: (AU, No Red Wedding) Of course Arya would grow and make Theon question everything he remembers of the scrawny girl he once knew.


**Author's Notes:** Out of all the requests I've received, this was probably one of my favorites. It's totally weird and different and I think that's why I had such a good time writing it. Now I wish there were more fics out there of these two.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. I know nothing. GRRM does though.

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**And They Smiled**

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He had not intended to even look at her once, not even thought of her on his journey back to the North, not for a second wondered what the little she-wolf might be doing, but the moment he lays his eyes on her, he feels a cold blade of desire sneak up between his ribs like a knife. Her smiles cut him to the quick, the whites of her teeth like razors that he'd kill to have nipping at his neck; her hands that he knows aren't soft like a ladies should be tease him when she grips the back of his jerkin tightly; and her little breasts that he hadn't even considered that she'd grow one day press against him like a loud warning.

"You were gone for so long," she says when she pulls away from him, a frown in her voice but a smile on her face. She cannot hide smiles from him, not he who has only ever hid behind smiles. She knows that about him though, has for a long time, ever since they all returned to Winterfell battle weary and bloody and amazed that they were even alive. He had carried her back to Robb then, tiny as she was, and he had smiled at her even through his exhaustion.

(_"You don't need to worry,"_ he had told her. _"You're home now, with your family."_

_"__But you're not,"_ she had replied, turning her head away from him, and in his heart he knew that she now felt what it was like to not have a home or a family, to be someone and no one at the same time.)

Robb has a feast to celebrate the arrival of the Lord of the Seastone Chair. He enjoys himself far too much, of course, has himself a bit too much to drink, holds onto the daughter of the new stableman a little too long, laughs just slightly too loud. Robb loves him for it though. The war made him so old, older than his best friend, and it's only when the two of them come together again that he is alight. He is only one and twenty, the Lord of Winterfell is, but he seems far beyond his years, much like his father had before him. Starks were made for winter and war though, but he likes Robb better when he is laughing and smiling, telling some stupid story about an adventure they'd had before his father's head had been dashed.

When she sidles up next to him on the bench, fire immediately begins to burn in his gut. He thinks to tell her that she should leave, go be with her beautiful older sister, go dance, go do something that is far away from him, because with this drink clouding his mind, he's like to do something more than just stupid. She smiles at him though, all innocent, and takes his flagon out of his hand.

"Oy, I was drinkin' that."

"Really? I couldn't tell the way you've been slurping them down." Her smile takes a more wicked turn and she drains the rest of his drink, setting the flagon down with a sort of grace he hadn't imagined her ever capable of before. It's crude and harsh but graceful nonetheless. It's nothing like Sansa, but it's entirely her, gritty and dirty and all he ever wanted and never knew until now. "Do they not have wine on Pyke?"

"We've plenty of wine," he tells her defensively.

"Then there's no need to drink all the wine in Winterfell," she replies, still joking, still all smiles. "I'd like to have at least a little in the near future."

_I'd like to have you in the near future,_ he can't help but think, looking at her lips. He bets her lips would taste like that rich red wine she'd just stolen from him and that she tastes like warmth, though he's not sure what warmth would taste like, if he could even taste it. These are dangerous thoughts though, he knows that much, and so he shoves them far down, deep down, into the tombs underneath the castle.

"We should go for a ride tomorrow," she says, "a bit of hunting. Robb actually lets me go hunting, if you can believe it."

His face softens as something inside him breaks a little. "Robb could not deny you anything."

She quirks an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean? He's denied me loads of time."

"Not true – he always caves in the end." He knows that about Robb, knows how he loves his younger brothers and sisters unequivocally, knows that he loves them more than he loves his closest friend, and he is fine by this. They were lost to him but now they were found; and now that their father was dead, they were his responsibility. He is more terrified of losing his family than he is of his home, his land, his title and name. "After what you went through, after he thought you dead, how could he possibly say no?" There is a sad look in her eyes, as if she has always known this but tried to hide from it. He smiles at her. "Besides, you're very clever and persuasive and no one's going to say no to you when I hear how good with a sword you are, _my lady_."

Though she slaps him on the arm, she laughs as well. "And I'm good with a bow as well."

"Oh really? You do know that the Greyjoys are infamous for their skills in archery."

She stands up, not so graceful since she's been forced into a gown. He imagines just how graceful she would be in breeches and a tunic, like him, and how infinitely graceful she would be in nothing at all. She would be like water, sliding through his fingers, but so hot that it'd burn him. She leans over, her lips close to his ear, and her breath is hot and tingles. "We'll just have to see how good you are tomorrow then, now won't we?" she murmurs.

(She was a stranger in her own home for the better part of her first year back. He would find her in the strangest places – up in the leaves of the great weirwood tree in godswood, sitting on the sill of the window that Bran had been thrown from, even a few times whorehouse in the town talking to the whores, as if she could just talk to anyone and everyone. _"I'm not used to being a highborn lady anymore,"_ she admitted to him as he brought her back to Winterfell. He'd gone looking for a whore and instead came back with her. _"I don't know how to…how to wear this skin."_

_"__You just smile,"_ was the only advice he could give her. He wanted to explain to her just how it felt to be in a home that was not your home. He wanted her to know that she didn't have to feel the way he did all the time, aching for a place he had only dreamed of for so long. He imagined she ached for her childhood home, and despite this being the same place, it wasn't the same anymore for her. _"All you can do is smile. It's not so bad."_

Eventually it became real.)

The next day he finds himself chasing after her on his horse. She rides hers with ease, with love, with greatness. Instead of sitting properly in the saddle, she practically stands, racing through the woods like a shadow. The bow on her back is smaller than his, built to her size, and he knows instinctively that Robb had had it made for her, probably for a birthday or just because he hadn't allowed her to do something and he'd felt guilty. Robb wanted to come with them on their little hunt, but the Lord of Winterfell has his duties. He'd promised to keep an eye on Robb's little sister and he knows that he cannot fail that promise. The only thing he wants to look at right now is her.

"You've spent too much time on a boat," she says as her horse trots a circle around his. There is a proud look on her face. She has always been proud, that much he knows, but it is the first time he realizes how good pride looks on her. It makes her look older, but not in that tired way that Robb sometimes gets, not in the way her bastard brother always looked. "Got your sea legs only to lose your land ones."

"I'm a Greyjoy," he replies, something of a smirk on his face. "The sea is my home, not the woods."

The pride fades away from her face, only to be replaced by a strange one. He's not sure what it is, only that there is a slight frown on her face but not on her lips, which are parted and teasing. She looks him in the eyes, her grey eyes locked on his. "This used to be your home," she says quietly.

"You know that Winterfell was never my home." The words bite much like the cold wind that surrounds them, but he's old enough to know that they are true and sometimes they must be said, if only to remind himself. He couldn't bring himself to say things like that when he had been young, foolish and childish enough to delude himself into believing that this could be his home and they could be his family when they weren't. Now that he had been returned to the Iron Islands, to his home, to the life that had been set on hold for so long, he had to tell himself things like that. When he woke up and could smell the salt of the sea instead of the hot pools under the cold ground, he had to tell himself again and again.

She turns from him and slides off her horse, tethering it to a tree. He watches the way she moves, how her shoulders are suddenly hunched and how she ducks his gaze carefully. "I missed you," she says, sounding very much like the girl of three and ten that he last saw. "I don't know if this is my home anymore either," she says, sounding confused and heartbroken. "You were the only one that understood what that felt like."

He doesn't realize he's off his horse until he's standing behind her, his hands hovering over her shoulders. They are close, too close; and he can smell her, the way she smells like the woods, all pine and weirwood. He loves that smell. It reminds him nothing of Pyke. "Arya…" he breathes out. When she spins on her heels to face him, she immediately puts her hands on his chest – and shoves him hard. He stumbles so badly that he nearly falls backwards. "Arya!"

"And you write terribly and take far too long in your responses and not nearly long enough for the time it takes you," she tells him fiercely, this time sounding like a wolf. It's almost a snarl. She stalks toward him, all anger and vibrancy. This is the girl that he knows. She who was so full of life, she who would run as fast and far as her little things would take her, she who would steal his bow and try to use it when it was nearly as big as her. He would push her aside, tell her to go bother her sister, and never give her to time of day. It is all he can give her now. "And I knew you didn't care. I knew you were more concerned with Robb or Pyke or your real sister or even the damned sea, but I–"

"I cared," he sputters out, feeling like a complete fool. He steps toward her and she steps back, which makes him halt altogether. He has never once known her to step back from anything or anyone. It's not like she's afraid of him. (Or is she?) He rubs the back of his neck, heat flashing down upon him heavily. "I cared. I _care_. I just…I just didn't know it."

This time, she does snarl at him and he's reminded of just how quickly a wolf can turn on you. "You didn't know it? How do you not know something like that? How thick can you be?"

"You should know by now that I'm pretty thick," he points out, a weak smile on his face.

"It's not funny!" When she jumps forward to shove him again, this time he is ready and he catches her by the wrist, pulling her flush against him. She struggles at first, jerking on him, but no matter how wily and strong she is for her size, he has a man grown and his gloved grip on her is tight. Her elbows dig into his gut, but he ignores it and the kicks she directs at his shins and the very unlady-like swears she throws at his face. After minutes of fighting, she stops and goes limp against him. She presses her face into his chest, huffing furiously and tiredly. "How do you do it? Go from someone to no one to someone again?"

He wants to kiss her, wants to make her feel like someone again, but he resists the urge. Instead he says, "You have never been no one."

She looks up at him. "Neither have you. I know you felt it, but… You have always been Theon to me."

There is a warmth that burns inside of him and it's a strange kind of burn that he's not used to. It's not the burn of desire that pools in his gut, not the kind of burn that he has to extinguish with the help of a pretty girl. It is something deeper, something much more dangerous. He knows that he cares about this girl much more than others before her, knows it is in a different way as well. It's not love, not really, just a sort of…affection that he can't particularly describe.

"How do you live in a home that no longer feels like your home?" she asks in a whisper.

And it is in this moment that he presses his lips against hers. She squirms against him, pushing herself further into him, folding herself into his body. He grips her wrists tighter because he can feel her move. He can tell that she wants to run her hands along him and he's afraid of what might happen if she does that because he desperately wants to feel her little, rough hands press against his skin. And he's afraid of what he might do if his hands are free to roam. She runs her tongue against his lips and when he parts his mouth to breath she is in him, nearly making him jump. It's as if he is a terrain she has traveled before and she's familiar with him.

He realizes dimly while kissing her that she has kissed before, that she is far too good at this, and he had sort of been imaging that he would have to _teach_ her.

She is the one teaching him though.

"You could come with me," he mutters against her lips. Her kisses are hard, almost angry, and wild as she is. She kisses without abandon, without care, without any sort of properness. Her lips say _I want you_ without them ever forming the words at all. "You could come to Pyke with me, just for a bit, to travel. You'd like the sea; I know it."

The laughter that bubbles out of her mouth is not sweet or kind. It's not bitter or angry either. It's just…there. "You don't know what you're saying. You don't even know me anymore." She bites down on his bottom lip, almost hard enough to make him bleed, but he likes the pain, likes the way he can feel her practically sneer as she kisses him softly, as if kissing the wound she has just inflicted. "You'd want me gone almost as soon as I came." She pulls away for a second, looking him in the eyes, a sad look in her own. "I'm not the girl you think I am or remember. I'm…"

"I'm not asking you to marry me," he tells her with a dark laugh of his own.

"What about your salt wife?" she drawls sardonically.

"That would be a tale, hm?" he says in a low voice as he kisses her again, this time deeply, so he can drink in her and remember her taste for the rest of his life. He can't forget, lest this is the last time he ever has her like this again. He's forgotten so many things, so many girls, so many days and nights and moments that he'd thought he'd always remember. He can't forget this. "A Stark made a salt wife of a Greyjoy?" When he pulls away, he can see an almost slightly unamused look on her face; and he smiles. "No, you are too wild for that. You've got too much wolf blood. I don't think anyone could tame you."

She gnaws on her bottom lip, a habit she has yet to grow out of, he notices. "Yet someone will try. Men always do. You will try."

He knows she is right, knows that deep down he will want to conquer her, despite his affection, despite everything. It's in his nature. It's in his blood. _We do not sow _– we take what we want; we take what is ours. And he wants her, wants her deep in his bones, but she is not his. He doubts she will ever be anyone's but her own. "And when I do, you can leave, return to Winterfell, return to Robb and the rest. He'll let you go. If you can't convince him, I can. You know that."

She is quiet for a long time, still against him, looking far away in the direction that he knows is the Iron Islands but she does not. The sea calls to him all the time, whispering for him to come back, to return. He wonders if she can feel the lull of the waves as well or if she can only feel the chill of the winter snows. He wonders if she feels the heat of King's Landing or the pounding of the rain in Harrenhal and the Riverlands. He wonders if she feels anything at all or if she is still the lost girl he found in the smoke.

"There are so many things we have to consider," she says, "so many things and-and–"

"Because you are one for proper planning and doing nothing impulsive whatsoever," he points out.

She glowers at him. "You knew I'd say yes. You knew I wouldn't be able to resist myself. A chance to just go, to get away–"

"Just because I took too long in writing back and didn't write enough and didn't pay nearly as much attention to you as I should have doesn't know I don't know you, Arya Stark."

"I think I hate you, Theon Greyjoy," she tells him as she grasps onto his shirt, his hands still wrapped around her wrists, and jerks him down so that she can kiss him again. The sound of his name on her lips makes him feel more like someone than ever before. It makes him feel more like someone than when people call him Lord Greyjoy. It makes him feel more than he has ever felt before.

(_Lord of the Iron Islands,_ he read in one of her letters. _I'm still getting used to Robb saying that and realizing he's talking about you. Does it feel strange to hear people call you that? It sounds funny when people call Robb King in the North, and I'm a princess. As if being a lady hadn't been bad enough. I'm a bloody princess now. Sansa's perfect. You should see her. She's so beautiful and graceful and kind. Everyone loves her. And there I am, looking ridiculous in this get up. I don't belong here, in this dress, with this title. I wish I could be like your sister that you talk about, captaining a boat with my own crew. What was it that you said? Every man is a lord or king of his own boat? I could deal with the title then._

He couldn't help but imagine her on a boat, wearing clothes similar to Asha. She would wear them proudly, he knew, prouder than any gorgeous dress that they will drape her in. She'd stand on the edge of her boat, holding onto the rope, looking far out in the sea, just awaiting that next adventure. And she'd laugh about the all the boats she'd caught off guard as she showed him a little trinket that she found. The gold she would give to her crew and a precious gem she'd send to Sansa with some story of buying it, but there'd be something so small and so worthless that she'd keep to show him and she would spin her story and spin around him like a water dancer.

_How do you do it?_ she asked in her letter. _How do you handle being the Lord of the Iron Islands now after everything has changed?_

_'__I smile,'_ he wrote her back. _'I smile because it's ironic. Because this is the way I always dreamed of it being and yet I've realized it was nothing that I wanted at all. Because I'm someone finally and I don't quite know what it means to be someone.'_


End file.
